The biochemical tests for the blood and body fluids play an important role in modern medicine. The number of biochemical tests are in both treatment and diagnosis of diseases for the patients requested by doctors are increasing rapidly every year. The increased number of tests are greater than can be handled by the available medical technologists to cause the modern laboratory to resort to automation.
However, the methods and techniques of separation of the serum or plasma from the centrifuged blood has not been improved to meet the need for the speedy automation.
The conventional method for the separation of the serum or plasma into the tube include a glass pipette with a rubber tube at its end. The main disadvantage of the conventional method is the time consuming procedure and the requirement of the three different parts (tube, rubber tube and pipette). These prior art devices cannot get rid of the red cells and fibrin clot which causes problems in automation by clogging the small capillary tubes. The expense of three component materials, the technologist's time spent for the repeated pipetting procedure, and the assembly of parts lend to increase in time and costs. The repeated pipetting between the two tests causes exposure to the medical technologist to the infectious diseases such as hepatitis, etc. Finally, it is necessary with the prior art tubes to cover the serum or plasma tube with a cork, rubber cap, or plastic cap to prevent the evaporation and contamination of the serum or plasma. The cap is also necessary to reduce the exposure of the sample to air which in some instances causes false abnormal values.
New products which become available on the market are not useful by the user mainly due to the lack of speed and convenience of use.